


Come and Look at My Etchings

by Jathay



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: M/M, alternative universe, angry biologists au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-16 17:41:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5834776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jathay/pseuds/Jathay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the eve of their smackdown panel, and despite Jim's best efforts, Dr. McCoy starts a fight with his sworn enemy and grant competitor, Spock</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come and Look at My Etchings

“Everyone wants to make a discovery that changes the field forever. Everybody wants to be paradigm-shifting. Doesn’t mean they get to be. Most of their conclusions are crap, but look who gets the funding. Melodramatic crap sells,” Leonard McCoy took a long drag on his beer and turned to his friend. Jim Kirk, rather than listening, was twisted around on his stool with his back to Len. Kirk was staring down the bar at a pretty woman with her long black hair pulled up in a ponytail and her blonde companion. “Don’t let me distract you, Jim. Lord knows you have other things on your mind tonight.”

Jim whipped his head around to Len, sloshing his beer. “Don’t be like that, Bones. Tonight’s supposed to help you unwind, so you don’t bust a blood vessel on the audience tomorrow. Maybe making some lovely new acquaintances will help you out,” Jim waggled his eyebrows and elbowed Len in the side. Len just grumbled and returned to his glass.

“Wouldn’t need to worry about that if the conference hadn’t thought pairing me up with that holier-than-thou Vulcan bastard’d be good entertainment.”

“From what I hear, they’re expecting your panel to be standing room only,” Jim agreed with a shrug, looking completely nonplussed. “Who knew there were so many nerds interested in the taxonomy of _fucking snails_.”

With that dismissal Jim turned again to the women at the back of the bar, putting on his bedroom eyes. “Hey, those nerds may actually be hoping for a fight. Let’s not give it to ‘em, yeah? I think I’ve got enough disorderly conduct charges for the both of us.”

“Biologists do love a good brawl at their conventions. Livens the place up--it’d be a damn shame to disappoint ‘em,” Len replied, following Jim’s gaze to the two women. The blonde was staring hard at them.

Jim turned back to Len looking all the world like he’d drag Len out by his ear if he even thought of starting anything uncouth tomorrow, before seeing what occupied his friend’s attention. He broke into a grin. “That’s more like it. Let’s see what these lovely ladies have to say to ‘Doctor McCoy’, huh?”

“Now that’s just misleading, Jim. I ain’t that kinda doctor.”

“Okay: it’s not inaccurate it sounds good, and no one knows what the hell a malacologist even _is_ , so we’re going with ‘Doctor’,” Jim hit Len’s shoulder with a smirk as he made his way down the bar to the two women. Len scowled into his glass and decided to finish his drink in peace--make Jim deal with his wingman schtick alone.

He spun on his stool, turning to face the door so he wouldn’t have to face the embarrassment that was Jim attempting to flirt for him. The bar was better-lit than most, aimed at the older crowd of professors and graduate students rather than undergrads. Most everyone inside was seated at a table, and the rumble of conversations filled the room, punctuated only by the occasional laugh. He’d have to thank Jim for digging this place up, it was a much better plan than the hotel bar. Fewer people who knew about the panel tomorrow, fewer people who’d try to pick a fight with him, get a preview of the fireworks that’ll start as soon as that smug bastard opens his mouth--

Speak of the devil. His pointy-eared antagonist, his _co-panelist_ , chose that moment to walk into the bar, looking as aloof as Len’d ever seen him. The man immediately began to sweep his eyes over the room, looking for a seat. Len quickly hopped off his stool and made his way to Jim at the back of the bar, crossing his fingers that he hadn’t been made out in the crowd.

Jim threw his arms out to greet Len as he joined them at the back of the bar. “Here he is! Meet Uhura and her lovely girlfriend Christine, Doc!”

Len grimaced and turned apologetically to the women. “I’m not a medical doctor, I’m sorry my friend’s been lying to ya--”

“Oh, we know who you are, Doctor McCoy,” the blonde--Christine--cuts him off and extends her hand to him. “I’m Christine Chapel. My cell motility paper was used in one of the presentations today, but I’m staying through tomorrow. I just had to see you and Doctor Spock go toe-to-toe. Your research is very interesting.”

Len shook her hand, bemused at finding a fan of his work out in the wild--and willing to talk about it no less. “Nice to meet you. It’s not often that people have any interest in what I do.”

“Well, you won’t find that tomorrow, I can assure you,” Christine said slyly. “Your most recent paper has been the talk of the town. A fantastic defense of your work, but were all those jabs really necessary? I’m sure Spock had his ears burning the whole time you were writing it.”

Len flushed crimson at the jibe and took the last sip of his beer, peering at Christine from the corner of his eye. He thunked the glass down and began his default rant, lovingly crafted for all the years he’d been dealing with Spock. “Well, those ‘jabs’ wouldn’t’ve been necessary if all the grant committees weren’t enamored with him. Needed someone to straight talk about the guy, even better that I could do it while absolutely destroying his weak-ass issues with my paper.”

He saw Jim and Uhura share a look behind Christine and decided to keep going. If Jim wanted him to work out his frustration before that godforsaken panel then by god he’d work through this head of steam here and now. “I can’t speak properly to Spock as a person, but as a scientist he’s got a lot to answer for and I’d like to have a word with his doctoral advisor. Who the hell lets a guy go to his dissertation encased in the idea that every. damn. fool. thing that pops into your head is automatically valid and worth your peers’ time? His entire basis of thought with regards to _M. pikesis_ is pure fantasy fueled by delusions of grandeur.”

In a distant corner of Len’s mind, he registered that Jim had placed his head in his hands and Christine looked like the cat that ate the canary, along with the realization that he’d ended up carrying this on much louder than he’d intended, but those were no reasons to stop now. “He gets money because he sells journals, not because there’s any actual merit to his work. Eventually the scientific consensus is going to realize that and stop adding new branches to the tree of life for the goddamn hell of it--”

“That would indeed result from delusions of grandeur. However, I know of no one who is proposing such drastic changes to our idea of Earth’s phylogenetic tree for the sake of mere notoriety.”

Len whipped around only to find himself face to face with Spock, standing quietly behind him. How long had he been there? He’d been talking loudly, but not nearly loud enough for Spock to hear him...unless Spock had been listening in to his conversation.

“And yet here we are, with people like you trying to make a name for yourself by making up entire orders out of wholecloth because you can’t be bothered to do the legwork of actually proving that it’s not closer related,” Len spat into the eavesdropping Vulcan’s face.

“Relying on the idea that you are the only one who could have examined the evidence properly is a weak defense of your position. I assure you that I have done the ‘legwork’ and simply have come to a different conclusion. Or is that not possible in your philosophy?” Goddamn he looked smug.

“Oh, it’s possible. Just not in this case,” Len returned, standing up from his barstool. “I seem to remember there was a whole lot of fuss over new phyla in the Burgess Shale years ago, but where are they now?”

“We are still left with a great number of species without classification simply due to the fact that the current classification system cannot fit them. I fail to see how the shale is a defense of the current system to which you are wedded,” Spock didn’t back off in the slightest, which left Len in the slightly uncomfortable position of standing right in the Vulcan’s face. But hell, he was never one to stand down in a fight so he stood his ground inside Spock’s personal bubble.

“They’ll get classified in due time, once it’s definitively proven where they belong. Real classifications have evidence to back them up, unlike yours.”

“Your position is unnecessarily narrow, and only serves to wedge unique species into pre-existing classifications so suit your own notion that our current model of the tree of life is the most accurate it will ever be. Perhaps you’ve never truly examined my work, or don’t understand it. I am able to explain my research to you tonight, piece by piece, so that you’re not unprepared for the panel tomorrow.”

“I’m not unprepared, but if you want to give me more ammunition then I’m not gonna stop you,” Len grabbed his bag from the stool and stomped to the door, Spock following calmly behind him. 

Len barely heard Jim’s “Wait, what?” over the rushing in his ears as he held the door open for Spock and made a grand sweeping movement with his arm. Len followed Spock out the door and down the street, pressed close to Spock’s side as they continued to debate their positions.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next morning, Jim strode into the conference room and craned his neck to scan the seats. Bones told him he’d have a seat reserved in the front row, but he hadn’t seen his friend since he left the bar with Spock to continue their fight elsewhere. Would his seat still be saved if the two panelists didn’t even show?

He saw Christine talking animatedly to some other people while Uhura read something on her PADD, staking their claim of several seats near the front of the room against the hordes of people filing in. Jim ducked and weaved through the people still searching for those few open seats, and then made a beeline for the panel table when he saw a familiar head of brown hair setting his battered bag on the table.

“So!” Jim announced his presence before grabbing Bones’s arm, “did you have fun last night? Get to see his etchings and everything?”

“Get out of my face, Jim, I need to set up,” Bones shrugged Jim’s hand off and started setting PADDs on the table, and took a hurried gulp of water. He seemed a bit jumpy, probably because Spock had yet to show. Or because he was worried people would notice he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday.

“You have a hickey,” Jim tapped the bruised spot on Bones’s neck before being swatted away. “Awww, is all your fight gonna be gone? These poor people came to see a good old-fashioned brawl, wonder what they’ll say if you two are too busy making eyes at each other to poke holes in your arguments.”

“There he is,” Bones seemed to become battle-ready in a split second as he locked eyes with Spock as he walked up to the table. “Hope he’s ready to look like a fool in front of all these people. I don’t think they’ll be disappointed--go sit down, Jim.”

Jim took his seat and watched as Bones and Spock tore into each other in front of 300 people, but he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that he was watching some very public foreplay....

**Author's Note:**

> alternative title: "Snientists (Snail scientists)"
> 
> I have heard _stories_ of biology/taxonomy conventions and those undoubtedly exaggerated stories inspired this fic
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
